Over the last few weeks we have witnessed one of the greatest human tragedies of this century. It is impossible not to be deeply moved by the plight of the Iraqi Kurds and the other Iraqi refugees. The scenes of suffering, starvation and sheer human misery which we have seen on our TV screens and read about in our newspapers have touched us all. Particularly harrowing is the fact that those who are suffering most in this tragedy are those who are least able to endure suffering, very young children and elderly men and women.
These people are ordinary human beings like you and me. They are the victims of brutal repression by a regime which has in the past shown no regard for the basic human rights of its own people. The Kurds of northern Iraq were deliberately targeted by Saddam Hussein for one of the most savage campaigns of collective reprisal which the world has ever seen.
With the ink barely dry on the agreement which brought about the cessation of hostilities between Iraq and the multinational forces, the Iraqi authorities launched a terrible onslaught against a section of their own people who were fighting for a status of autonomy which had been conceded to them some 20 years ago but regrettably was then withdrawn. Cities, towns and villages were shelled and fired on by helicopter gunships, bombs were dropped indiscriminately on civilian communities, many innocent people were killed or maimed and hundreds of thousands of families were driven from their homes, many in inadequate clothing and having to leave behind all of their possessions, and forced to flee to the barren mountains of the north-east in the hope of sanctuary from the terror which followed them.
This is the scale of the problem with which the world has been faced; a massive number of people, men, women and children, people from all walks of life, stranded in the open air on freezing mountain-tops, without adequate supplies of food or water, huddled together in make-shift shelters watching members of their community die in their hundreds each day. Up to two million people have been uprooted from their homes and forced to endure the most horrific deprivation. The total number of displaced persons remains unclear but this is one of the largest involuntary movements of population the modern world has seen, in particular in so brief a period.
The immediate needs of the refugees are obvious for all to see — it is imperative that they receive food, shelter and medical supplies as an absolute priority and they must be safe from further attack while this relief effort is in progress. The front-line countries which had to bear the initial brunt of the refugee problem were Iran and Turkey. It is fair to say that these two countries, along with the international community in general, were caught unawares by the scale of the crisis and the speed with which it developed. Because of the swiftness and brutality of Saddam's retribution and the Iraqi ban on foreign media coverage, little was known of the enormity of this tragedy until thousands of weak, hungry and bewildered people began arriving at the Turkish border having made the long trek, on foot, through the mountains.
No country could, on its own, cope with a refugee problem of this size. Even in the early days of this tragedy, when emergency relief efforts were getting under way and food and shelter items were beginning to be distributed at the Turkish border, few imagined the scale of the crisis. The resources of the Turkish state were severely stretched. The local population and the military and provincial authorities, under the co-ordination of the Turkish Red Crescent, made major efforts to alleviate the suffering of the refugees. There was simply no way, however, that this could be sufficient and a massive international effort was always going to be necessary.
The same must be said of Iran, a country itself ravaged by eight years of terrible warfare and having suffered a series of natural disasters such as extensive flooding and the recent catastrophic earthquake. The Iranian authorities have responded very well to this latest crisis, opening their border to admit the Kurdish refugees and making available to them everything they can, in terms of food, medicines and shelter. Iran had already accepted many thousands of refugees during the preceding months of the Gulf crisis, including of course the Shi'ites from the south of Iraq whose uprising against Saddam Hussein was also brutally repressed. Some camps were prepared, but not nearly enough to cope with the numbers involved.
When the scale of this problem became clear, I believe that the international community responded well. The United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organisations launched appeals within days and began setting up organised relief operations. The European Commission made a preliminary contribution to the relief effort on 3 April. On 8 April, at the special EC summit meeting, the Twelve Heads of State and Government announced that 150 million Ecus was being made available immediately to help the refugees. I hope that the massive provision of aid and improved logistics will shortly ensure that food and other vital supplies will become more widely available to the refugees. However, this will not solve the crisis, as refugees cannot be left in temporary camps in the inhospitable mountain conditions of the border regions. Apart from the problem of the physical needs of the refugees, the international community had to address also the question of security.
What was at stake was the effective possibility for the refugees to receive and benefit from the international aid being provided so massively. This issue confronted the international community with very serious issues of principle. The territorial integrity of states and non-interference in their internal affairs are very important principles of international law. However, faced as we were with the deaths of hundreds of refugees daily, especially the very young and the old, we had to consider whether the international community did not have overriding responsibilities to intervene in order to prevent these unnecessary deaths.
It was thus that on 5 April the Security Council passed a Resolution insisting that Iraq allow immediate access by international humanitarian organisations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq and to make available all necessary facilities for their operations and requesting the Secretary-General of the UN to use all the resources at his disposal to address urgently the critical needs of the refugees and displaced Iraqi population. The Security Council expressed its grave concern at the developments on Iraq's borders which threatened international peace and security in the region, and thus opened the way for enforcement action by the Security Council. The European Council, meeting three days later, confirmed the view that the situation represented a threat to peace by virtue of the Charter and envisaged the establishment of a protected zone under UN supervision.
Since then, the efforts of the international community have been directed towards the establishment of protected zones in Iraq, within which the refugees can be assured of receiving and benefiting in security from the aid being provided. Because of the urgency of the emergency, the safe zones I refer to are being established in Iraq by U.S., UK and French military forces, with assistance from other states. The objective is to establish these zones, so that urgent requirements can be met within the time-frame required, and then hand them over to the authority of the United Nations. Ireland supports this objective, considering that the primary need is to prevent further unnecessary death and suffering. We note that the objective of handing the camps over to UN authority is shared by those setting them up, by Iraq, and by the UN itself. Of course, an important consideration in deciding the future responsibility for the camps is the security of the refugee population being aided there.
The mission of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the Secretary General's Representative to the region, and his signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Iraqi authorities on 18 April is an encouraging development, encouraging in that it opens a possibility of transfer to UN responsibility of the relief operations currently going ahead in northern Iraq. The Memorandum recognises the importance and urgency of adequate measures, including the provision of humanitarian assistance, to alleviate the suffering of Iraqi refugees. Both Iraq and the UN agree that the measures to be taken for the benefit of displaced persons should be based primarily on their personal safety and the provision of humanitarian assistance and relief for their return and normalisation of their lives in their places of origin. In it the Iraqi authorities pledge their full co-operation with the United Nations wherever a UN presence is needed.
UN sub-offices and Humanitarian Centres are being set up under this agreement. The centres are to be staffed by UN personnel as well as personnel coopted from the ICRC and other nongovernmental organisations. The Iraqi Red Crescent will also play a role in the relief effort. The memorandum also provides for the urgent setting-up of routes of return, with relay stations along the way and logistical back-up. The Iraqi Government has agreed that humanitarian assistance should be impartial and that all civilians in need, wherever they are located, are entitled to receive it. The agreement specifically guarantees that all Iraqi officials concerned, including the military, will facilitate the safe passage of emergency relief commodities through Iraq.
These provisions reflect the more general objective of the operations now being carried out, namely, to ensure urgent relief of the suffering of the people concerned and to reassure them that they can eventually return in safety to their homes. The recent history of Iraq gives rise to legitimate questions concerning the violability of assurances given by the present authorities of Iraq. While, therefore, we hope that they will deliver on this agreement, the international community will be monitoring the situation closely to see that Iraq begins to behave acceptably to its own population. In this connection we attach some importance to the negotiations being conducted in Baghdad between Kurdish representatives and the Iraqi authorities aimed at securing agreement on a status of autonomy for the Kurds in Iraq. From press reports it would appear that progress has been made in these negotiations. We hope that thus the necessary steps can be taken to ensure that the current crisis can be overcome while maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq. In our view the dismemberment of Iraq would not serve the interest of anybody.
I would like now to go back to the relief effort proper. The Irish contribution to this has been a significant one. The Taoiseach announced in Luxembourg at the informal meeting of the Twelve Heads of State or Government that the Government was providing £1 million to assist the refugees, £700,000 of this has been made available through the Community budget and £300,000 was provided bilaterally through aid agencies. At the weekend I announced a further £225,000 allocation, bringing the total Government bilateral contribution to £550,000, of which £200,000 will go through the Red Cross, £150,000 through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and £100,000 each through Concern and Trócaire. The Irish public have also responded magnificently to the various appeals. This country's total contribution to the relief effort will exceed £3 million. Once again the Irish people can feel proud of the way in which they have acted to help those in need.
As Senators know, the first plane-load of Irish aid was flown to Tehran last week in a joint Government-Red Cross effort on a cargo plane provided free of charge by the Aer Lingus's subsidiary, Aer Turas. The supplies were accompanied by a Red Cross volunteer who was able to report that they were successfully distributed. Since then further flights have followed and more are scheduled for the coming days, including two more flights arranged by the Government and provided free of charge by Guinness Peat Aviation and Aer Turas.
One of these will go to Turkey, bringing relief supplies for the Concern operation in refugee camps on the Turkish border, and one to Iran with further supplies from the Irish Red Cross.
The relief effort has gained momentum rapidly in the last fortnight but there is still much more that has to be done to ensure quick and effective assistance to the refugees so that their suffering can be ended as speedily as possible. There have been indications in recent days that more aid is reaching those who need it most and some refugees have been airlifted to lower ground. A more effective distribution network for food and medical attention is being established, and better co-ordinated relief programmes and full and speedy delivery of the resources pledged are getting the immediate problems under control. The Government, as part of the overall international effort, will continue to review the situation and will consider further action as developments warrant.
At present the situation in Iraq has not yet been satisfactorily clarified. It is therefore the view of Ireland and the rest of the Twelve that the sanctions that were imposed on Iraq because of its invasion and purported annexation of Kuwait should be maintained so long as it persists in policies and practices regarding its own population which have given rise to such unprecedented suffering and that derogations from the sanction regime should continue to be examined case by case on a humanitarian basis. It is also our view that those in Iraq who are responsible for such crimes should be brought to account: we know that the authorities in Kuwait, which was the victim of war crimes and vandalism throughout the Iraqi occupation, are pursuing this matter. The Twelve have decided to follow up this possibility as far as they are concerned: we have already taken it up with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
I would like finally to revert once again to the effort to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees. The situation on the Turkish border at first received most attention — understandably, as it was there that the international media had concentrated. However, I have just been having talks here in Dublin with my Iranian counterpart, the Foreign Minister Dr. Velayati. I have told him that most of the Irish bilateral aid has gone to Iran. This is only appropriate, when one considers that the numbers of refugees entering Iran are in fact greater than the number on the Turkish border.
I once again pay tribute to the openheartedness of the people of Ireland in their response to this appalling tragedy. I hope that out of this unspeakable suffering of millions of innocent people will arise a new international consciousness of the solidarity of all the people of the world and of the corresponding responsibility of the international community to do its utmost to relieve the suffering of the innocent, wherever it may occur. This will be an indispensable component of any acceptable new world order.